Living on borrowed time
by Jerry Chang
Summary: Not all heroes wear capes or live in ivory towers. A tale of morality, sanity and above all else; a fearful wander along the thin line separating the light and darkness inside oneself as an unlikely figure makes the choice to disrupt the status quo and create his own side whilst an unexpected enemy ascends from the ashes with a deadly endgame in mind. OC main character.
**Living on borrowed time**

 **Not all heroes wear capes or live in ivory towers. A tale of morality, sanity and above all else; a fearful wander along the thin line separating the light and darkness inside oneself as an unlikely figure makes the choice to disrupt the status quo and create his own side whilst an unexpected enemy ascends from the ashes with a deadly endgame in mind. OC main character.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or any part of the DC comic-verse and that this is a non-profit fiction created for recreational purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 1- Wrong place, wrong time

"You're a good kid Logan," The elderly man lying down on the bed rasped out, "Don't you ever forget that,"

The Logan being referred to turned back to face the man and forced out a small half-smile before quietly turning to leave after a half-mumbled message that work should finish at about two in the morning.

As Logan quickly hurried down the stairs of the apartment complex that he lived in with his elderly grandfather, he couldn't help but think about the parting words of his grandfather. He never really considered himself to be a bad kid as 16 years living in Gotham City had led to him often seeing examples of "bad kids," most of them being his age and already notorious gangsters with a sobering amount of these being seasoned murderers. Relative to that, an outsider who had never seen anything in Gotham City to consider him to be some sort of saint. But he was a red-blooded male under the age of 21 so it was pretty hard to fathom him as a saint considering as it was still a big stretch to consider any of them "decent chaps".

But in some way he was a normal person despite the circumstances that he had found himself in. In Gotham City there were thousands of other kids who had similar stories like him; lost their parents at an early age for some sort of reason and spent the majority of their childhood being bounced to and from the walls of the uncompromising system. Later they either chose to give up and commit suicide or pursue a live of crime in order to survive. Gotham City was a tough and unsympathetic place; it rooted out all kinds of weakness and one had to be strong in order to survive. It was a few steps short of an urban version of Golding's "Lord of the Flies", save for a few masked and caped vigilantes that upheld the thin barrier separating the city from complete unbridled anarchy.

Logan could safely say that because of his environment he wasn't that sheltered and that his moral restraints would be much looser in comparison to a boy of the same age not native to Gotham but he still wasn't comfortable with the idea of turning to crime. He was a pragmatist at heart and knew that his grandfather wasn't going to stick around forever: He suffered from a rare heart condition that meant that if they couldn't find a donor, his chances of survival were very low.

Logan would admit grudgingly and in private that he had cried when he had first heard this news of his grandfather's terminal illness and for a few weeks felt nothing but anger towards the system. Understandably so, as he had lost his parents at a relatively early age of 7 years old in a terrible car crash which he had miraculously survived but with no memories of the incident. This wasn't the root of his anger, in truth it was the sobering fact that he was going to lose the only remaining family he had left that really hit him hard.

But now he was in a state of acceptance as reason began to help him understand and provide a sense of closure: For example he knew that the list of heart donors was already very small and that his grandfather at the age of over 70 years of age would be less of a priority to a child or young man or woman. Even if there were no other people in need for a heart transplant, it would still be hard to find a viable heart as his grandfather had the rarest blood group; O negative. That meant that by relying on conventional methods it was almost wishful thinking as it would take a miracle for them to find a heart and even then it wasn't a 100% guarantee that it would work. Logan knew that he probably had a better chance of winning the lottery.

Being the pragmatist that he was, he had ruled out being completely reliant all "conventional methods" of the system and had turned to unconventional methods. Living in Gotham City it wasn't exactly uncommon knowledge that there was a black market operating in their vicinity despite the ominous looming of Batman. The reason why these markets existed was because they were able to provide goods that couldn't be found elsewhere, making the high prices somewhat worse it.

It just so happened to be the fact that Logan knew that in this black market, a large sector was devoted to the sale of illegally obtained organs, specifically hearts. Logan knew that his moral code didn't stretch to necessarily condone the methods of which these organs were obtained by and his conscience did constantly remind him of this fact, but he knew deep-down that he would be prepared to forego this cost to get the thing that could save the life of his grandfather.

Despite this pragmatic outlook onto life, Logan often felt himself prone to bouts of idealistic thinking. Fantasies if you must call them anything but he often found him wishing for some kind of superpower to help him get out of this vicious cycle that he was in.

He knew that his life was tough in that he had no free-time to pursue any of his interests, no time to study and do homework and around an average of 3 hours of sleep a night. Being under 18 years of age, it was compulsory for him to be in school still and he would receive financial sanctions if he was to bunk off school after new legislation from the government was imposed. So he would forcibly endure the 9 till 5 school day, often half-asleep and unfocused before going home to cook dinner for his bed-restricted grandfather, eating before going off to work. Work consisted of odd jobs, sometimes around the dockyards but often in the more "shifty parts" of Gotham city.

In fact it was the dockyards where he was off to work tonight with him being burdened with the knowledge that he had a long, gruelling 5 hour shift waiting for him consisting of uncompromising hard manual labour for small amounts of pay. It wasn't pretty work and the rewards so doing so weren't really that much. It was barely enough to put food on the table for the two of them as well as pay for rent. He was already behind on two months of rent; the tenant was a fairly sympathetic person who understood his situation- which was a fairly refreshing change, but Logan knew that his patience and goodwill would eventually run out.

But he didn't really have a choice, all that he did was merely buying himself a few weeks of time and he knew that if he got fatally injured one day at work (which he had come close to several times) it would all come crashing down, making his situation of pseudo-poverty look glamorous compared to what would hypertheoretically take place.

"Yeh alright?" One of the other longshoremen grunted to him as Logan walked past him, a small incline of the head as he acknowledged him. Logan walked as quickly as he could without being seemingly disrespectful he wanted to minimalize all of the contact that he had with that particular worker, commonly known to the other workers as "Greasy Teddy". Many of the longshoremen had nicknames such as "Greasy Teddy" did and it was common practice for one to call the other by that name, as one never really disclosed their actual ones. That was fine with Logan who had been coined "Cub," which was in itself some sort of less-patronising step-up from "Boy" that he had been called when working in other similar professions.

Logan accepted this name as he knew that he was much younger than the other workers with the second youngest being in his late thirties. Besides he wasn't looking for any trouble, he barely spoke to anyone there and just kept his head down, worked, collected his wage and then went home. Furthermore "Greasy Teddy" often had a rather pungent sort of smell that wasn't related to work- it was more of him wearing cologne de petrol if Logan was going to be frank with him.

"Boss." Logan said respectfully, dipping his head slightly as he spoke to his employer.

"Good to see that yeh is 'ere nice n early," The man responded, a cigar between his lips "Yeh know da fuckin' drill tonight. Unload da boxes from da fuckin' ship cuming in, she's called da Lady Grey."

Logan nodded at these instructions, quickly deciphering the message from the strong language and unorthodox way of pronouncing certain words before walking off to find some gloves to put on for the job.

The boat arrived relatively soon after Logan had finished getting ready for the job and as per normal he began to unload the boxes off the ship, trying to avoid thinking about what better things he could be doing at this moment in time.

Suddenly Logan felt something hard hit him upside the head as he placed one box down onto the dock. As he slumped down the ground, vision blurring as he did so, he watched as the other workers were being attacked by gun-wielding men wearing balaclavas. Logan snapped back into focus as he heard the familiar resounding sound of a gunshot as he saw one of the men shoot Greasy Teddy square in the chest. Logan watched in mock horror as Greasy Teddy staggered backwards from this before another two more bullets joined the first in penetrating his torso. The impact of this forced the dying man backwards even more until he ungracefully flopped into the water, unclear whether or not he was dead before he fell in.

Realising that he had just witnessed a homicide and possibly was going to see another or worse be the victim this time, Logan slowly and quietly got to his feet despite the throbbing pain in his temples, before turning tail and fleeing from the scene as fast as he could. Behind him he heard one of the men shout,

"No witnesses, silence them all."

"Shit." Logan swore as he willed himself to run faster as he tried to ignore the pain in his head. Unfortunately for him, in doing so he had foregone all sense of stealth and had attracted some unwanted attention. "Shit on a brick." Logan swore hurriedly under his breath as he scrambled up a fence before quickly vaulting it.

Down dark alleyways and side-roads, Logan began to run faster without looking back. Behind him he could still hear his pursuers, but he didn't dare look back and lose the small advantage that he had. Occasionally the odd gunshot would whizz over his head and give him a sobering reminder to him on how close he was to death. Logan chose to ignore this sensation and just fled, adrenaline keeping him going. Soon he heard small thumps and groans coming from behind him and the gun-shots stopped. Logan was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth and he knew on this night it would get him bit, so he kept on running like a deer.

Logan turned a corner sharply and quickly drew himself to a halt at the sight of seeing a figure standing in the middle of the alleyway. It was definitely a she, Logan could tell this by the diminutive figure and long hair. Logan could have sworn he heard a soft chuckle from the woman. He quickly glanced behind him to see where his pursuers were. Oddly there was now nobody chasing after him wanting him dead, it was almost as if somebody or something had taken them out. Logan turned back towards the figure blocking his way to see that she was gone. Logan blinked in surprise before deciding that this was just far too much for him to comprehend now. Shamelessly, he took off down the alleyway to continue fleeing the scene whilst praying that whoever it was who was shooting at him before didn't see his face.

* * *

(Later that night)

The attack had only been at around 10 o'clock but Logan was positively sure that he needed to make sure he was not being followed. He didn't like the sound of "No witnesses," or being "Silenced," especially when it was a balaclava ridden gun-wielding person ordering his death. He decided that he would take an elongated detour to the other side of the city, before sneaking back in the early hours of the morning, hoping that they didn't see his face. Logan then made the decision that at least for the near future he would stay the hell away from the dockyard.

Logan groaned as he quietly staggered into the apartment at a time of approximately 3 o clock in the morning. Careful not to wake his grandfather, he walked into the bathroom and turned on one of the lights. He winced as he saw the state of his face, blood seeping from a cut on his cheek and a clearly visible bruise forming on his right eye. This would be hard to hide from his grandfather and he knew that it would probably lead to a lot of unwanted questions and attention from school. Sighing deeply, he ran the tap as he began to clean the blood from his face, he decided that he would deal with this problem in the morning and think of an excuse then. With another sigh, Logan turned off the tap and light before going to bed to try and get as much sleep as he could.

* * *

(The next day)

"Mr Brookes what on earth happened to your face?"

Logan held back his tongue as a smart-arsed answer formed in his mind. Instead of deploying the witty answer that was: "Gotham City is what happened Miss," he decided to brush it off by saying that it was an accident at work.

It wasn't a lie as it sort of was technically an accident at work, it was simply him lying by omission. Logan briefly thought about the morality of his words and he concluded that it could have been worse- i.e. he could have lied flat out to his teacher. His answer was morally acceptable to him as he was merely exploiting a loophole in his loose moral code. Despite this "justification" he didn't feel much better about himself. Furthermore he didn't really like the idea of straight-up lying to pretty women, even if she was around 8 years his senior and a teacher. Also noting the fact that she was far too over-qualified to be working here in a school in Gotham and that she was definitely way out of his league as well as being pined by pretty much half the school population over the age of 15.

Logan looked away as he tactfully decided to reach downwards to pickup his bag from underneath the desk. Thankfully, the history teacher had waited until the end of the lesson, he really didn't want any more attention than he had already got. Most of his peers probably noticed his injury but were well enough accustomed to seeing stuff like this that they didn't ask any awkward and unwanted questions.

"Yes I know, I'll be more careful next time Miss." Logan said as he slowly stood up before walking about the classroom to leave, unable to meet her gaze. That was also another half-truth as he did vow to himself that he would be more careful next time in that he would stay the hell away from the dockyards. Logan couldn't tell if he really liked this whole half-truth business or lying through omission but he assumed it was all about one's perspective: glass half-full or half-empty.

But what he did know was that he needed to come up with better excuses. The school knew that he lived with his grandfather and that his parents were dead and as a result worked. But they didn't really know the full extent of it in how he was barely treading water with his head being submerged more times than he would have liked it to be. He knew that he couldn't always use the same excuse that it was an accident at work; in this instance he had a black eye and it was quite the shiner. Most kids who came into school with that either got abused at home (it wasn't pretty but it happened quite a lot in Gotham) or they got mugged. Both situations led to the school and possibly the police getting involved and that was probably the second last thing Logan really needed right now. (the top one was running into the people from the previous night). He liked staying under the radar and unwanted attention was a big no-no for him. Maybe next time he could say that he had walked into a door or something.

As he left the classroom, completely oblivious to another unexpected pair of calculating eyes that were studying him, Barbara Gordon carefully took out a folder from her locker before chancing a glance at Logan who had already slipped away.

Only a small number of people really knew her other identity of Batgirl and she had heard through the grapevine what had happened last night by the means of her father and Batman: 7 bodies were found dead at the dockyards this morning with them all being identified as longshoremen. It was the time of death that really got the Bat-people suspicious as it was the case that longshoremen usually worked during the day whilst the medical examiner had determined that they were all killed at around 9 o'clock last night. That led to them suspecting that there was something illegal happening there. It wasn't an uncommon case but judging by the number of dead bodies it could be inferred that it was likely that the longshoremen were unloading either drugs or guns.

The other problem about this whole situation was that there was going to be no form of records in regards to how many men were supposed to be working there that night. None of the men who were found dead had any formal ties to gangs and it superficially appeared that it was a case of wrong place, wrong time. However she had also heard through one of Batman's sources that the attackers were scouring the streets for a boy no older than the age of seventeen as there was a rumour that there was a boy who was working at the place that night and had escaped. As a result, the gang felt that he needed to be silenced.

Barbara couldn't help but think that this person was Logan Brookes. If that was the case then she would need to keep a watchful eye out for him. From what she had heard from the conversation he had just had from the history teacher Miss Markethill, he had definitely been working last night. Furthermore his tone of voice did betray him in the way that it did hint that he was lying but through omission as opposed to fabrication. Being who she was, she was privy to some classified information about her peers in that she knew about his situation but up until now she honestly didn't really care about it. He wasn't the only one of her classmates who had it rough and were forced to work in order to pay the bills and survive. She decided that she would speak to both her father and Batman about this and ask for their thoughts on it. Most likely they would decide to get one of her or Nightwing to tail him for the next few weeks to make sure that the attackers didn't find and kill him.

* * *

(The next day)

Logan sighed as he climbed the stairs up to the apartment where he lived, today was slightly more tiring than usual. The school had gone on a history trip to the museum so in one way no one would really care if he zoned out, but equally the walking around aspect was also quite undesirable. He didn't work last night in fear that whoever had shot at him the other night might be looking for him. But he knew that he had to face that fear eventually- he had to be able to pay rent in the next couple of weeks or risk being evicted.

And that was the problem. Logan knew that he was running out of time to abide by the laws of the system and that he would chose survival above conformity. So in essence the young teenager began to explore unconventional methods.

Because of the rather short time frame he had, the young teenager began to mentally rule out certain ways. Eventually as he was beginning to cook dinner for him and his grandfather he had concluded that stealing was probably the best course of action for him. He wasn't prepared to do anything drastic like carry out a hit or join a gang, he just needed money quickly.

"Fuck." Logan swore quietly to himself as he realised how desperate he had gotten. Shaking his head to discard the thoughts of his guilty conscience, he began to think carefully about potential targets and how he might go about stealing the particular item. As he was brain-storming ideas inside of his head, Logan couldn't help but think about the trip to the museum today. He had heard that some of the newest additions to the display weren't obtained through strictly legal matters so if he was going to steal one of those artefacts, then they surely couldn't kick up that much of a fuss.

He also knew that he had to be careful about how he did it in that he couldn't go back to take another look without immediately making him look suspicious. The school trip yesterday was his perfect cover and fortunately, he was able to notice a few things about the security: The security at the museum was pretty low-key with only a few guards who spent most of the time picking their noses or playing on their phones. There were only a handful of security cameras and he could try and hack into the system and play back a loop if it wasn't a digital set.

But in all honesty, he hadn't tried to do anything like that before so it was best to think of other solutions. He could sneak into the museum in the late afternoon, hide out in the toilets until closing time before striking but that meant that he was screwed as soon as they looked at the security footage. If he was going to be perfectly honest, he needed another look at the place to properly scope it out, even if it meant that when he did strike it might be suspicious, the trade-off was probably quite even.

So he made the decision to himself that if he couldn't find work tonight, then he would go tomorrow to scope out the museum to get a feel for what targets there could be, that were viable. With a half smile at this crudely crafted plan, Logan carefully poured the vegetables onto a dish and went into the living room to hand it to his grandfather.

Little did he know that he wasn't the only one who was looking to steal something at the museum.

* * *

(The following night)

Logan walked slowly, not too slowly to be suspicious but slow enough for him to be able to get a feel for the layout of the museum. Of course he had gotten his hands on the blueprints of the museum before but it never hurt to take a pilot-survey or feel for his future hunting ground. He wore a baseball cap but managed to hide parts of his face from view, he decided upon that as opposed to a hoodie as whilst hoodies were probably better at concealment and common amongst teenagers his age, it was something about hoodies that had negative connotations attached to it that made it suspicious.

In his hands was a camera that he used to take pictures of anything he thought had some value or was do-able if he ended up stealing something. Logan continued to walk around until he saw a particular artefact that had managed to catch his eye.

Superficially it seemed to be quite normal, just another jewel encrusted dagger with what looked like ancient runes on it lying behind a glass box in the Egyptian collection. But something about it seemed to be abnormal as if it had some sort of power that he didn't really know of, but despite it could feel its aura.

"She's quite the looker isn't she?" A voice commented rather casually from somewhere to his left. Logan was immediately startled by this comment, both by the sudden, unprecedented nature of the comment and the use of the personal pronoun to personify the dagger.

"It's a very beautiful dagger." Logan replied carefully. "It feels a bit strange though, almost like..."

"It was crafted by the Gods." The man interrupted, finishing his sentence.

"Yes, that." Logan answered, a little bit unnerved by this strange man. The man then took a deep, elated breath as he took another closer look at the dagger. As he did so, Logan couldn't help but notice that the man was dressed in a way that was a bit strange for one walking around Gotham. He was dressed in a royal blue, long-sleeved shirt that had a white lining on it. Logan didn't recognise the material of the shirt, and guessed that it must be pretty expensive it was something that he didn't recognise immediately.

His thoughts of observation were rudely interrupted by the man declaring; "You are right in that it is a very beautiful dagger, that is partially why I'm going to steal it."

Suddenly Logan was blown back as every piece of glass in the room including the windows, all shattered spontaneously. Instinctively Logan tried to cover his face with his arm to block any stray shards of glass from hitting his face from his position on the floor. After a tense few seconds, Logan chanced a quick look to see what was going on and saw the same man casually reach into the box and pull out the same Egyptian dagger that the two had been looking at before.

"Fuck me." Logan swore to himself as he scrambled to his feet, yet again in the same week he was a witness to another major crime.

"Vandal Savage." A voice cried out from the other side of the room. Both Logan and the man holding the dagger turned to face the newcomer. "The Justice League have been tracking you for months and are on their face to put an end to your treachery." Logan glanced towards her and saw a figure dressed in purple with a top-hat that wouldn't be missed from a magic show in Las Vegas.

"Zatanna." The man named Vandal Savage snarled, "So do you expect me to believe your words? After all wasn't it you who left the Justice League because of a little incident involving wiping the memories of your fellow heroes?" The man taunted, sarcasm dripping from every word. Logan then made the decision that he didn't really like this man.

"It doesn't matter," The woman called Zatanna called out, brushing away his taunts, although the redness in her face began to betray a sliver of anger that was forming. "You are under arrest for numerous crimes against time and humanity."

"Crimes against time?" Logan murmured to himself as he realised the depth of how bad a situation he was in.

"She's not alone." Another voice called out from seemingly above the trio. With the grace and elegance of a gazelle, the heroine commonly known as Batgirl jumped down from her vantage point and landed in front of Vandal Savage. "Batman kicked your ass last time you were in Gotham, now I'm here to remind you of that lesson."

Logan then watched as this Vandal Savage snarled at both of the woman as he carefully put the dagger that he had stole into a sheath on his belt. He then proceeded to raise both hands, but unfortunately not in surrender. Logan looked closer to see what looked like glowing black orbs of energy being formed by the thief.

"You can not hope to best me in terms of power woman!" Vandal Savage roared as he began to fire orbs of dark energy at Zatanna who quickly swung her staff and erected what looked like a pink shield that effectively dissipated the orbs upon impact. Logan watched the man growl with animalistic fury as he turned his attention onto him and Batgirl. Swearing loudly as he saw what was to come, he dived out of the way of one orb that was aimed at his face and watched as it exploded upon hitting the wall. Logan then subconsciously made it his upmost priority to avoid getting hit by one of those at all costs. Quickly, he scrambled behind a pillar from which he took cover from another more orbs.

"They said that you are on par or even superior to your father in terms of raw magical power but you cannot dream to best me." Vandal Savage mocked as he threw even more orbs of dark energy at Zatanna who had held firm with her magical shield. Unfortunately Batgirl hadn't fared much better as she had to resort to simply dodging anything that came her way.

"I have sold my soul to the devil to gain power beyond measure, but unlike that mere mortal Felix Faust I am immortal and cannot be killed!" He announced to the few remaining inhabitants of the museum as he fired off even more orbs of dark energy.

Suddenly, Batgirl seized the opportunity to move closer to hit him with her favoured melee strikes as his attention was now firmly focused onto Zatanna who had dropped her staff and in its place, on her right wrist there was a pink shield that appeared to be of the same kind to the barrier that she had used before and was now used to swat away any stray orbs of energy that Vandal Savage had throw her way in retaliation. Now in her left hand was a some kind of object that looked like a wand, that she wielded to great effect with Vandal Savage now being forced to dodge bolts of light being fired by the heroine.

Logan watched from relative safety as Batgirl effortlessly ducked under a few hastily fired orbs without breaking stride before swinging a powerful kick aimed at Vandal Savage's temple. With surprising agility, the villain ducked under her kick and began to engage in close-quarters combat with Batgirl. Meanwhile Zatanna had ceased her furious onslaught, predictably out of fear of hitting her own ally Batgirl with her shots now reduced in frequency to one alike to a military sniper.

Batgirl had noticed that the man seemed to have an extremely high pain tolerance, having already blocked a couple of kicks that should have shattered the bones in the arms of a human or at least crippled a meta-human. Pivoting on the ball of her right foot, she swung her leg round aiming for his chest. To her relief she had succeeded and upon impact of the foot, it was met by a satisfying groan of pain from Vandal Savage as he stumbled backwards to regain his balance. Seeing this as an opportunity to go for the jugular, Batgirl rushed forward to attack but was immediately blown backwards by a ripple of dark energy that Vandal Savage had unleashed.

With incensed fury, Vandal Savage cried out something inarticulate as he threw a bolt of black lightning directly at Zatanna who tried to parry it with her shield but the sheer force of it blew her backwards. Logan could only assume that the shield saved her life in that instance as he could feel the raw energy radiated from it despite his position on the other side of the room.

Logan blinked as he looked up before swearing loudly. "Shit." Logan yelled as he dived from his previous hiding place. Zatanna had been successful in redirecting the bolt of lightning away from her at the cost of her balance at the time, but unfortunately for Logan it was heading straight for him. Eyes wide, he dived out of the way of the bolt of black lightning and winced as he heard the explosion it made upon impact with the pillar. Scrambling to his feet, he noticed that Batgirl hadn't fully recovered from Vandal Savage's attack and had only managed to stumble to her feet. This wasn't unnoticed by Vandal Savage who let out a loud laugh and by a casual lift of him arms, levitated pieces of rubble and fired them at Batgirl.

Instinctively, he did the only thing that came to mind. Logan Brookes ran towards Batgirl and tackled her out of the way just as pieces of rubble and more orbs of black energy were about to hit the two. Logan opened her eyes to see the shocked ones of Batgirl through her mask, then he felt a sudden searing pain in his left shoulder as everything went black.

* * *

(Later that night)

"There's not much we can do to save him." An unknown voice commented solemnly. "He was dead was 10 minutes before you did your thing to him."

"What was he hit by exactly Zatanna?" Another voice asked.

"Bruce, I don't know exactly." Zatanna replied sighing deeply. "Vandal Savage really did take a leaf from Felix Faust's book and he had traded his soul for more power than Felix had ever done. So now he is both a necromancer as opposed to solely a chromo-mancer so I cannot honestly say I have encountered anything like this before."

"He's just a kid." A figure in a green outfit commented after a few tense seconds. "You said that you know him Barbara?."

"He is in my class at school but we've never spoken." Barbara/Batgirl replied, "However he was the one that me and Nightwing take in turns to watch after we thought that he was being targeted by that gang."

"We still don't know who they are and what they stole." Nightwing murmured darkly as he inadvertently reminded the members of that room of an incomplete job.

"Do we know what he was doing there?" Robin interjected rather too sceptically for Batgirl's liking.

"Well it did look like he was casing the place in preparation for a job." Batgirl commented with a sigh.

"There is a solution." Nightwing said carefully and calmly interrupting the two to defuse some of the tension, "Bruce didn't you give Zatanna the serum last time she came here to keep for safekeeping?"

"Do you have it with you?" Batman asked as Zatanna nodded before closing her eyes and murmuring something under her breath. A few seconds later she reached out with her hand that had seemingly disappeared before retracting it, now with a glass vial, held carefully in her fingers.

"If that is what I think it is, then that might be able to save him." Nightwing commented. "He saved her life, we owe him the chance of him getting his own one back."

"But if what Barbara says is right, then we could be giving whatever that serum does to a potential criminal." Robin argued.

"Potential criminal, but he hasn't done anything wrong yet." Nightwing retorted. "I did a bit of snooping in the police records before I got here; he's a poor kid been through a lot. He lost his parents early on and is living with his dying grandfather, I just guess because he saved Barbara's life we should give him the chance to get his life back."

"Dick's right." Zatanna commented with a slow nod of agreement at the dark hero's statement. "What do you think Bruce?"

Batman didn't say anything for several seconds as his eyes remained closed in deep concentration as he weighed up the pros and cons of the situation. As much as Tim had a point, Dick's argument was also strong. Plus a part of him that he would never like to admit was present had a bit of a soft spot for people like Logan. Batman opened his eyes as he made his decision, whilst silently praying that it was the right one.

"Do it." The hero of Gotham City ordered.

* * *

(Earlier on that day)

Reginald Brookes opened his eyes instinctively as a bright white light filled the room momentarily. He blinked twice as the light vanished and in front of him were three elderly women. The three women were sitting down on three separate armchairs, with a ball of wool nestled in the lap of the first woman. From that, the second was measuring the thread whilst the third was holding a pair of scissors as if she was about to snip it.

"And so it is." The old man commented calmly despite him knowing what was going to happen next. He had been waiting for this day for quite a while now, and now that it came he couldn't really articulate exactly what was going through his mind.

"Your time has come," One of the woman crowed whilst the other tugged on the ball of yarn in response to this declaration.

"But he needs to know his past," The other one argued with a slight hiss in her voice. Reginald relaxed when he realised that whom they were talking about was not him; in a way the first woman was right, it was time. Fortunately, he knew this as well as he had put measures in place for this event.

"At least let an old man say goodbye to his grandchild." Reginald pleaded with a small smile despite knowing the answer as he began to stall.

"We cannot allow you to do so." The third woman said, a small hint of sympathy in her voice as the hand holding the scissors began to twitch. "You should know this."

"It never did hurt to ask." The old man said with a small smile of acceptance on his face.

"This has dragged on for long enough," The first woman crowed as Reginald sighed.

"Very well, just make sure that he will learn his past," The old man pleaded as his trembling hands reached into his pocket to withdraw an envelope. After doing so he nodded and the elderly woman finally snipped the thread.

And with that, the old man - opened his arms and embraced death like an old friend just as his heart stopped beating for the last time.

* * *

 **AN: First chapter finished and out of the way.**

 **Can there be no parallels to Kenchi's Less than Zero. The only similarities between the two that I will acknowledge and tolerate is that they are both in the DC Comic-verse, with an OC and written strictly in the third person.**

 **Logan in short has a lot of bad luck. His circumstances are unfortunate but not unheard of. The role that I plan for him to grow into means that he isn't technically a hero, but he isn't really a villain either.**

 **The serum will give him what could be classified as superpowers but its a bit more complicated. I'm planning on Logan having something that is practical and it really helps him but superficially it seems like a crap power to have.**

 **If anyone recognises the significance of the last scene and can infer any parallels/crossovers to come please do leave your thoughts down below in the reviews.**

 **I will confirm now that the fic will contain characters from other universes, hopefully parts of this chapter have revealed what is to come.**

 **Just to clarify in this timeline; DC Comic's Legends of Tomorrow hadn't happened yet, so we won't be seeing Hunter anytime soon. Vandal Savage is going to play a big part in this fic, an unexpected one, but nevertheless of the main antagonists.**

 **Please leave a review down below with any comments about the whole story or if you have any suggestions for any characters I could use from the DC comic-verse in this story.**

 **Any beta-readers out there willing to work on this project please do message me,**

 **JC**


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